The present invention relates generally to telecommunications systems and apparatus, and more particularly, to a system and apparatus for handling a plurality of calls to an interactive voice response (“IVR”) system.
In order to make the most efficient use of IVR ports, the present invention provides a system for dynamic port allocation based on DNIS (i.e., dialed number identification system, e.g., the incoming number, such as an 800 number). In an installation where the IVR voice channels are wired to the station side of the PBX switch, each IVR channel may have a single application program hard-assigned. Then these channels may be grouped into hunt-groups (from the PBX perspective) so that calls for each application may be routed to the hunt group for a specific client application. The channels in that hunt group may answer calls only for that client application and no other. This type of arrangement, while functional, is very inefficient because the number of channels assigned to a client's hunt group has to be large enough to handle the peak call volumes while during lower call volume periods many of the channels go unused.
A more efficient method of IVR channel use is to group all channels of an IVR box into one hunt group and then assign the client application dynamically, as the call arrives. This way, the channels are busy handling the mixed call volumes of many client projects and are available for any peak period of any project. The present invention is a unique “port sharing” system which is adapted to make maximum use of a limited IVR port resource.
In order to do dynamic port allocation, the IVR must be made aware of the incoming number that was called (usually an 800 or 900 number) before the call is actually answered. With the present invention the DNIS information may be passed to the IVR out-of-band (on a separate digital link) so that the IVR can allocate the correct application in a very short period of time (typically less than 500 milliseconds after the call arrives on the PBX switch).
The basic data flow for port sharing under the present invention is this:
1. The Call arrives on the PBX.
2. The PBX passes the DNIS and ANI (“Automatic Number Identification” of the phone from which a call is made, i.e., the calling number) information on to the telephony server.
3. The server formats the information and sends it to a background process on the IVR.
4. The background process determines that the message is meant for a port on this particular box and saves the DNIS and ANI data in memory.
5. The call arrives at the IVR port.
6. A special application that is preferably hard-assigned to every IVR port notices the port has an arriving call and asks the background process for the DNIS and ANI information.
7. The special application looks the DNIS up in a table, determines the correct application and executes that application on the port.
In addition to the novel features and advantages mentioned above, other objects and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent from the following descriptions of the drawings and preferred embodiments.